Immersive Music Streaming: A Fistful of Nothing?

On Tuesday, October 15, in New York, Sony, together with four music streaming services and an important number of music industry partners promoted a press event to announce the new 360 Reality Audio music ecosystem. This follows the presentations made early at CES 2019 and a repeat of the demonstrations at IFA 2019 in Berlin. At this event, Sony announced the upcoming commercial availability of 360 Reality Audio, an immersive audio experience utilizing object-based spatial audio technology.

A new study by Dr. Joshua Reiss of the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), published in the June issue of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (JAES), concludes that in the majority of cases listeners can hear a difference between standard audio and better-than-CD quality, known as high-resolution audio (HRA). The study, involving over 12,000 different trials, is the first to apply formal meta-analysis techniques to audio engineering research.

The 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention marked a triumphant return to L.A. with 15,403 registered attendees and 307 exhibitors/sponsors - a west coast 10-year record high. During four days there were 350 presentations from 731 leading researchers and practitioners in the field, providing AES attendees an unprecedented program.

This year’s AES Product Design Track at the 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention in Los Angeles, combines two themes to bring a significant learning opportunity to audio engineering professionals; Theme 1 events are focused on audio design topics, while Theme 2 brings to AES the subject of product development in the age of global engineering and sourcing.

The 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention Calendar of Technical Program Events is already available and features a full schedule of workshops, papers and presentations, including an expanded Broadcast and Streaming Track with timely topics, from loudness issues and CALM Act compliance to facility design, codecs and signal routing.

High Resolution Audio will be a major focus at the 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention in Los Angeles (October 9-12, 2014). The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) will present a comprehensive program on the topic, which is simultaneously causing excitement and passionate debate among audio professionals.